Don Surber makes the case for Trump Playing 3D Chess

Don Surber makes the case for Trump Playing 3D Chess

A few days ago I when I said Trump’s Mika tweet was a bad idea I included this caveat:

Now it’s very pos­si­ble that this is Trump play­ing 3D chess while I’m play­ing check­ers. He knows the media effects of this kind of thing, knows it will help their rat­ings short term and may want the media obsess­ing on this rather than the health­care bill or some­thing else com­ing down the pike. He might even be inter­ested in demon­strat­ing that he can lead the MSM by the nose where ever he wants them to be.

Feud­ing with Trump is a bad move. He piked their heads as a warn­ing. The spin is this brouhaha boosts their rat­ings. Maybe, but man did it destroy their cred­i­bil­ity. That is all the media has.

That’s a pretty good point but this one is even better

Democ­rats need the public’s sup­port to stop Trump. Democ­rats can either talk about pol­icy or Rus­sia. They chose the lat­ter. They chose poorly.

And the media chose to look at the tweet, not Kate’s Law. You can­not rally peo­ple against it if it is never discussed.

He can­not afford to lose three Repub­li­can votes in the Sen­ate on any leg­is­la­tion. The RINOs are pub­lic­ity hounds. Much as they would like to stop Kate’s Law, how can they if it is not in the public’s eye?

Tweet on, Mis­ter Pres­i­dent. That shields the slim Repub­li­can majori­ties in the House and Sen­ate from pub­lic atten­tion, and allows them to do their work with­out inter­fer­ence from the press.

The thing that proves his point is that he man­ages to get the entire media in an uproar to the point where even good smart peo­ple like Jake Tap­per are get­ting played to wit:

And let’s close this post with the ulti­mate irony, quote from Keith Olber­mann that I think fits very well here:

Pope, as Shelby Foote recalled in Ken Burns’s doc­u­men­tary, was a liar and a brag­gart. Yes, said Lin­coln. In fact I knew his fam­ily back in Illi­nois. All the Popes were liars and brag­garts. I see no par­tic­u­lar rea­son why a liar and a brag­gart shouldn’t make a good gen­eral. Pope did not win the Civil War, but in appoint­ing him, Lin­coln made it plain that what he needed from his Gen­er­als was use­ful­ness, not etiquette.

Right now we are in a polit­i­cal war or per­haps even a cold civil war with the left and Trump is my side’s gen­eral in chief fight­ing the bat­tle in his own Jack­son­ian way and winning.

Scar­bor­ough and Brzezin­ski are engaged in a back-​and-​forth with Trump over…what? A facelift? Hand size? Who said what to whom? The argu­ment, which appears to have started Thurs­day with Brzezinski’s needling of Trump’s hand size (“They’re teensy!”) took a turn when Scar­bor­ough and Brzezin­ski wrote in a Wash­ing­ton Post op-​ed (“Don­ald Trump is not well”) that, “This year, top White House staff mem­bers warned that the National Enquirer was plan­ning to pub­lish a neg­a­tive arti­cle about us unless we begged the pres­i­dent to have the story spiked. We ignored their des­per­ate pleas.” Trump­World sources are telling some (decid­edly not-​in-​the-​tank) reporters a very dif­fer­ent ver­sion of events, which sug­gests Scar­bor­ough and Brzezin­ski will be pulled into a he-​said-​they-​said fight that is far dif­fer­ent from the one they wanted.

Does any­one think that, by any mea­sure other than noto­ri­ety, this episode will not dimin­ish Scar­bor­ough and Brzezinski? …

Of course one could say that Trump is at fault, that he reg­u­larly engages in spats that are beneath the dig­nity of the pres­i­dency. He should not, for exam­ple, respond in kind to “small hands” jabs. But Trump is Trump. He does what he does, which is what he did dur­ing the cam­paign and before. And now, in the White House, he has enlisted his media adver­saries, wit­tingly or not, in a cam­paign against “fake news” that res­onates with his core supporters.

What all these folks for­get is that Pres­i­dent Trump’s pro­cliv­ity to do this has already been fac­tored into people’s equa­tions about him (think Joe Biden and his gaffes) It’s just Trump being Trump, but if you’ve built a rep­u­ta­tion on some­thing other than that, you just sound crass.

Update 2: You’re right Esky­man I can’t believe I for­got the link, fixed now

A few days ago I when I said Trump’s Mika tweet was a bad idea I included this caveat:

Now it’s very possible that this is Trump playing 3D chess while I’m playing checkers. He knows the media effects of this kind of thing, knows it will help their ratings short term and may want the media obsessing on this rather than the healthcare bill or something else coming down the pike. He might even be interested in demonstrating that he can lead the MSM by the nose where ever he wants them to be.

Feuding with Trump is a bad move. He piked their heads as a warning. The spin is this brouhaha boosts their ratings. Maybe, but man did it destroy their credibility. That is all the media has.

That’s a pretty good point but this one is even better

Democrats need the public’s support to stop Trump. Democrats can either talk about policy or Russia. They chose the latter. They chose poorly.

And the media chose to look at the tweet, not Kate’s Law. You cannot rally people against it if it is never discussed.

He cannot afford to lose three Republican votes in the Senate on any legislation. The RINOs are publicity hounds. Much as they would like to stop Kate’s Law, how can they if it is not in the public’s eye?

Tweet on, Mister President. That shields the slim Republican majorities in the House and Senate from public attention, and allows them to do their work without interference from the press.

The thing that proves his point is that he manages to get the entire media in an uproar to the point where even good smart people like Jake Tapper are getting played to wit:

And let’s close this post with the ultimate irony, quote from Keith Olbermann that I think fits very well here:

Pope, as Shelby Foote recalled in Ken Burns’s documentary, was a liar and a braggart. Yes, said Lincoln. In fact I knew his family back in Illinois. All the Popes were liars and braggarts. I see no particular reason why a liar and a braggart shouldn’t make a good general. Pope did not win the Civil War, but in appointing him, Lincoln made it plain that what he needed from his Generals was usefulness, not etiquette.

Right now we are in a political war or perhaps even a cold civil war with the left and Trump is my side’s general in chief fighting the battle in his own Jacksonian way and winning.

Scarborough and Brzezinski are engaged in a back-and-forth with Trump over…what? A facelift? Hand size? Who said what to whom? The argument, which appears to have started Thursday with Brzezinski’s needling of Trump’s hand size (“They’re teensy!”) took a turn when Scarborough and Brzezinski wrote in a Washington Post op-ed (“Donald Trump is not well”) that, “This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked. We ignored their desperate pleas.” TrumpWorld sources are telling some (decidedly not-in-the-tank) reporters a very different version of events, which suggests Scarborough and Brzezinski will be pulled into a he-said-they-said fight that is far different from the one they wanted.

Does anyone think that, by any measure other than notoriety, this episode will not diminish Scarborough and Brzezinski? . . .

Of course one could say that Trump is at fault, that he regularly engages in spats that are beneath the dignity of the presidency. He should not, for example, respond in kind to “small hands” jabs. But Trump is Trump. He does what he does, which is what he did during the campaign and before. And now, in the White House, he has enlisted his media adversaries, wittingly or not, in a campaign against “fake news” that resonates with his core supporters.

What all these folks forget is that President Trump’s proclivity to do this has already been factored into people’s equations about him (think Joe Biden and his gaffes) It’s just Trump being Trump, but if you’ve built a reputation on something other than that, you just sound crass.

Update 2: You’re right Eskyman I can’t believe I forgot the link, fixed now

Another Civil War anecdote concerning Lincoln applies here. NeverTrumps complaining about Trump tweeting is like the journalists who complained to Lincoln about Grant’s drinking. Lincoln replied: “I cannot spare this man, he fights!”. Trump fights when attacked unlike other Roll-Over Party pols who just stand flat footed and let the Left whale away at them.

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